Short hops and hard knocks with Red Sox beat writer Ian Browne.

Bobby V. backs Aceves

At least for now, Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine wants to stick with Alfredo Aceves in the ninth inning. Mark Melancon will also still be asked to get important outs.

“Everything happened so quickly,” Valentine said. “He thinks he’s making pretty good pitches. I do too. Mark was pretty close to finishing that out. The ball wasn’t that bad a pitch. It’s not like we say make up something to new and we have to come up with something different. We’ve got to have a little better results and I think we’ll have that.”

Valentine didn’t hide from the awkwardness of the Daniel Bard situation, knowing full well that there’s he public perception that he should be closing.

“We’ve talked and he gets it,” Valentine said. “Poor guy has been thrown into a situation that no one should have to be thrown into really before his first major league start of the season. Words aren’t going to do anything more than his performance will, that’s for sure.”

The lineup is back to what it was the first two games, except Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz won’t be back to back. Youkilis will hit cleanup, separating the lefty sluggers.

“I don’t think I really need to say why. There might be a little madness there though,” Valentine said.

Youkilis went hitless in his first two games, so this could be a way for him to get better pitches to hit.

Friday April 13th- Opening Day Fenway Park.
Liking what I see from Josh Beckett so far. Cody Ross looking like Trot Nixon in right field, so you know I’ve gotta be LOVING that. Been a long time since there was a Dirt Dog in right field!! Welcome to the Sox Cody!!
GOOOOOOOOOOOREDSOXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!
WOOOOOOOOOO-WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Trixie.

It was cool to see Tek and Wake throw out the first pitch(es). It was commented on the fan blogs that it seemed odd that Tek did not catch Wake (being a pitcher-catcher) for that first pitch. That might not have been the cleanest exchange, but it probably would have been entertaining! ;) (Where’s Mirabelli when ya need him?) Good to see both of them one more time at Fenway! Godspeed, Tek and Wake!
GO SOX!

Coming into the Rays series, I was not optimistic about the Sox facing the Rays pitching. What do I know. A lot of fans lamented that Scutaro was gone, Aviles speaks and defends with his glove and bat. At the start of the season, I said Cody Ross was a good pickup. How wrong I was until last two days. Go Sox!

Three in a row for Boston, a little home cooking will solve a lot of problems. They go for the sweep tomorrow, I didn’t envision that scenario when the series started.

Ortiz is on fire, hitting bullets all over the yard.

Mike Aviles with another big HR today.

Felix Doubront with a solid outing, he deserved better today. His defense let him down, especially Cody Ross in right. He misplayed a ball and he was totally lost out there. The HR Luke Scott hit off of Doubront was served on a platter. That pitch said “hit me” and Scott jumped on it.

Morales with another clean appearance for him. He did have to get out of a mini jam, but did get out of it and that is all that matters.

The Rays do have a solid rotation, but you wouldn’t know it this weekend. The area of concern for Tampa Bay is in the bullpen. Boston has torn up the Rays pen so far in this series. Not much depth out there, especially with Kyle Farnsworth out with a bad elbow.

Daniel Bard takes the mound tomorrow against Tampa’s ace James Shields and Boston has a chance to sweep a four game series. I still believe Bard will end up in the bullpen with Aaron Cook waiting in the wings around early May.

Clay Buchholz on Saturday hung around after a horrible first inning. He gave his team a chance to win and that is what you’re supposed to do when you’re on the mound.

Josh Beckett on Friday had another great outing against Tampa Bay. He owned the Rays last year and continued that dominance on Friday. I’m sure he heard the boo birds when he was announced, but he handled it well by shutting down the Rays.

On Opening Day in Detroit Mark Melancon was pitching in the top of the 9th in a tie game. He got a quick hook that day and got touched with the loss. Eight days later he’s pitching in the 9th with a huge lead. Amazing eight days later where he falls in the pen. Bobby Valentine has no confidence in him and I doubt he’ll have an appearance with Boston up by a small amount. Only way he pitches, Boston is either trailing or the Red Sox are way ahead. Maybe he’ll earn Valentine’s trust eventually, but not anytime soon.

4-5 after nine games under Valentine, what a difference a year makes. Francona’s bunch last year looked lifeless at this time. I was always a Francona supporter (he made his fair amount of mistakes) but Valentine was the right choice to replace Francona. Safe to say Curt Schilling doesn’t share that opinion.

Bobby V better make the transition from baseball analyst to Boston Red Sox manager soon. Things you might get away with saying in the booth will be better said behind closed doors one on one with the player as a
manager. Lesson learned after 9 games…hopefully it sticks! Go Sox…

I agree with you. Valentine opening his mouth before he thinks. Insert foot into mouth. Valentine has done this before with the Mets so this isn’t new for him. Why create a controversy, Valentine is smarter than that.

Is there a difference between Valentine and Jets head coach Rex Ryan? Other than the obvious (Ryan has a foot fetish). Both seem to follow the same line of thinking (assuming they are thinking). Both have the same number of championships as a head coach. Of course, Valentine has been around much longer than Rex Ryan. Both feel like they have accomplished so much in their respective sport, but in fact have won nothing.

I felt when Valentine got hired he was the “right guy” for the job at the time and still believe that to this day. Hiring Dale Sveum would have been a disaster. Valentine needs to be a little smarter when discussing his players in the media. Pedroia defended Youkilis and that is what you’re supposed to do to a teammate. You don’t hang him out to dry!

Tough game today for the Red Sox, but walks will always get you. You cannot allow free pass after free pass and expect to win. If Bard issued that many against the Yankees he would have been done by the 5th. Valentine should have brought in Albers to face Longoria with the bases loaded. I’m not sure why Valentine stayed with Bard. It was obvious Bard was running on fumes in his second start of his big league career. Maybe next time Valentine will pull the trigger on a pitcher that was out of gas.

Overall, it was a great series for the Red Sox winning three games this weekend. Boston limped into this series after losing five of their first six games and had some tough losses along the way in Detroit and Toronto.

I believe the Rays have one of the best rotations in the game. James Shields showed everyone today he’s the Rays ace. He shutdown a hot Boston lineup and mowed them down. That is what an ace is supposed to do, stop the bleeding and put an end to a losing streak.

The Rangers hit Fenway and then the Yankees arrive this weekend. At least these games are at home. If these games were on the road I would be a little worried because Boston has shown me nothing away from Boston.

Bobby V. speaks from his heart to mouth without filtering through the barin. Valentine stayed with Bard a batter and two too long. Nevertheless the Sox would likely lose if the game went to extra innings other than it is awfully tough to sweep a 4 game series against the Rays. A good series nonetheless.

Brian, we’ll have plenty of time to worry about playing the AL East away from home. That will happen soon enough. In the meantime, if we can play against them as well as we did the Rays, I’ll be happy. Nice to have them play at Fenway for a while.
The Rays do indeed have a great rotation, so it was great to play well against them in this series. They’ll be in the AL East race again this year. Nice to get a head start on them.
Ryan and Valentine are cut from the same cloth. The only reason I dislike Ryan more is because I’ve had to listen to him run his mouth too much in recent years, in game situations. Valentine will have plenty of time to catch up, esp. if he keeps talking about Youk or other players while the mike is on. :/ We’ll see if he keeps the Sox on a winning track– if he does, it won’t be such a big deal. If not…
GO SOX!

Agreed, Brian– the Rays do have one of the best rotations in baseball. It was nice, therefore, that we got 3 out of 4 against them, esp. at Fenway. It would be nice to do the same on the road, but we’ll worry about that when we hit the road again. If we can do equally well (or even close to it) against the Rangers and Yankees, I’ll be happy– then we’ll see how we do against the AL East on the road.
Bobby V and Ryan are cut from the same cloth. The only reason I dislike Rex Ryan more is because he’s been running his mouth longer in game situations. Bobby V will have plenty of time to catch up again, esp. if he talks about Youk or other players while the mike is still on. If he keeps em winning, though, that won’t matter quite as much… We’ll see…
GO SOX!

I’m glad Aceves has been getting back on the beam, as he is almost the only one I have confidence in right now.
Atchison may not be the most glamorous pitcher we have, but he is probably the most under-appreciated. I don’t want to imagine what tonight’s score could have been if Atch had not pitched the 4 IP he did. OUCH!
Anyone have confidence in Melancon for those “key outs”? I sure don’t. Not sold on Thomas, either– yet. I dunno…
GO SOX!

Glad to see Aceves get back on the beam after his rough start of the year. We’ll need him this year. He is almost the only one in our BP I have any confidence in, at all.
Atchison may not be the most glamorous pitcher, but he may be the most under-appreciated. And he was a big help tonight. I don’t want to think what the score would have been tonight if Atch had not pitched those 4 IP!
Anyone have confidence yet that Melancon can be counted on for those “key outs”? I didn’t think so… Ouch.
GO SOX!

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